Should it be fired?

JTankers wrote:It may be stumbled on, and a 'perfect score on a high school physics relativity test' 25 years ago may not sound very impressive to a physics grad student, nor an occasional perfect score on a general IQ test. But I am able to read and comprehend cosmological observation, it was just my hobby, now it is a focus.

Just to let you know, you stumbled on a forum of intelligent people--people who care more about arguments than criteria and "my IQ is higher than yours"--in short, people that know better. We're not going to fall for this crap, so don't even try pulling it. Try to understand--it's the argument itself, not who says it or how smart they are--that we're going to pay attention to and judge.

What do you think of the safety arguments made by Professor Dr. Otto E. Roessler and theorist Dr. Raj Baldev.

Otto sounds a bit like Penrose or Wolfram when they stumble out of their domain--kind of whacky. In addition, he seems to fit the psychological profile of a doomsdayer. Hey, you asked for an opinion. Baldev I'm not sure about--haven't bothered, and haven't been convinced I should.

Quite frankly, it is in fact important to consider doomsday scenarios--just because we haven't destroyed ourselves yet doesn't mean we won't (it's actually a fallacy to think otherwise). But it's also important to be sane in judging them.

It only took one Einstein alone to turn physics on its head after being rejected by physics academia. And Einstein is still considered the master of physics and I agree.

In the words of the great, late Carl Sagan: "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

We have not solved all mysteries of physics yet. If we have to scramble to prove safety with possibly only weeks for the rest of the world to review the results, in my mind this is reckless.

Right, but you're making the mistake of cherry picking fatality scenarios that you don't know about. They are possible scenarios, mind you, but possibility is irrelevant. The average person, and in particular you, does not appreciate the combinatorially huge number of things that are possible, and in particular, that are possible but not the case. This, however, doesn't help us to figure out whether or not we're on the verge of unknown doom, for if we are, the particular scenario, which may in fact be unimagined, would simply not be known. But this is, in fact, how you're arguing for it. It's a useless line of reasoning, and your presumably high IQ simply means you have no excuse for such sloppiness.

We don't want to know if it's possible we will blow up the world--because, quite frankly, we already know the answer. And the answer is, quite frankly, despite all the testing we will ever do--yes. It's possible. That doesn't help us.

What we want to know is if we are going to destroy the world. And we can't know this with certainty, but in reality, we don't really care about certainty. We care about whether or not it's probable--that is, likely, that we will destroy the world. So again, possibility--irrelevant. Likelihood--key.

How, then, are we to judge the safety of the thing? How do we judge likelihood that we will destroy the earth, when we're necessarily dealing with unknown physics (and we do in fact know our physics is incomplete)? Well, first off, we apply a bit of perspective. We're (inclusive in the sense of "humans") slamming particles around by injecting "massive" amounts of energy into them, so that we can study them. But how much energy are we talking about? 7 TeV?

That sounds like a lot, and in fact it is. But from a cosmological perspective, we're not even toddlers throwing rocks at ant beds. GRB080319B, less than a month ago, spewed out enough light that, despite the inverse square laws, was visible to the naked eye halfway across the universe. Supernova regularly produce explosions from octillions of tons of fuel. We're using magnets to sling a few particles together--something brand new, that we have never done before, but that's just us. We've got nothing on what Nature herself has done. (Edit: I mean specifically by new, that we do it at those particular energies, of course).

Mind you, these cosmological events are quite destructive, and we certainly wouldn't want to make a GRB at CERN. But not only has it happened before, it's happened in our neighborhood--that's how we get heavy elements in the first place. Surely if throwing a rock at an ant bed would result in matter engulfing black holes, an octillion tons of spent hydrogen fuel exploding into itself would have produced them in spades, and we wouldn't even be here. So despite the fact that neither I, nor anyone, really knows the exact physics of the situation, a reasonable sanity check against what we do know (and might I remind you--pulling the same tactics you used with Einstein versus Hawking--it's due to cosmology that we know our physics is incomplete) demonstrates to all people with a modicum of a sense of perspective, quite clearly, that we're not going to destroy ourselves with matter-erasers.

And you can even ignore the supernova phenomenon and just look at cosmic rays. They are made of all sorts of particles, and travel at all sorts of energies, including energies exceeding what we'll create at LHC. They hit earth all of the time. The theory of the naysayers, though, is that resulting particles travel too fast to do damage--fine. But remember, these particles don't just go through the earth--they exist in the cosmos. There's an entire solar system with billions of years of runtime in which these matter-destroying black holes could have formed by chance collisions that produce MBH's slow enough to get captured into an orbit. And even this isn't a full consideration--if these cosmic rays exist in the entire universe, they should be producing MBH's "cold" enough to be captured by our system everywhere--we just need one of these MBH's to float near us and start feeding.

This was the crux of what I was getting at somewhere near the bottom of page 1/top of page 2 of this thread--if these fears are realistic, we should be concerned about them not just from the LHC, but from Mother Nature herself.

Given that the sanity checks run against these scenarios establish real possibilities that such earth destroying constructs would be produced naturally, and that they may be a natural danger, and given that we don't see them, we can make a reasonable assumption that something's off. Whereas this could simply be that if we do the calculations they shouldn't really destroy us naturally, it's more reasonable to suspect that they simply don't occur.

When you start talking about physics experiments that Nature doesn't laugh at, then I'll start getting concerned about the unknown physics behind it. So long as we're throwing pebbles at ant beds, I'm not going to lose any sleep.

JTankers wrote:Thank you for your opinion. I had no desire to share my ideas before I was ready nor without more qualified co-authors, I do so only because we may have only a few months before the argument has no value.

You haven't shared a theory. There isn't any physics on that web site.

And the model at BigCrash.org was critically reviewed as "“…you may have stumbled onto some new explanations that would explain observed physics.”, I have requested permission to cite the reference. I notice that you said you read the model but you did not question any of the concepts presented by the model, you just focused on the credibility of the author.

I didn't see a physics model. There was no math: you are not speaking the language of physics.

Now, that doesn't mean you are wrong. That just means you haven't given any evidence that you are right. When that happens, you have to examine the credibility of the person making the claims in the area they are making them.

I then proceeded to point out what physics credibility is.

It may be stumbled on, and a 'perfect score on a high school physics relativity test' 25 years ago may not sound very impressive to a physics grad student, nor an occasional perfect score on a general IQ test. But I am able to read and comprehend cosmological observation, it was just my hobby, now it is a focus.

So you understand tensor theory, advanced topology, analysis, quantum mechanics? Are you fluent in LQG, String Theory, or the Standard Model? Do you understand the implications of Noether's theorem, supersymmetry? You could take a possible symmetry and derive a conservation law using it?

I don't consider me to be an amateur. I can't do all of the above, but I know enough that I know about some of the really elementary things you need to talk about physics on a rudimentary level.

Without that level of fluency, an attempt to talk about that sort of thing and attempt to make predictions is like trying to improvise a ballet, while deaf, and only knowing the title of the piece.

What do you think of the safety arguments made by Professor Dr. Otto E. Roessler and theorist Dr. Raj Baldev.

It only took one Einstein alone to turn physics on its head after being rejected by physics academia.

I think you have read to many Einstein myths.

Yes, he couldn't get a teaching job. Sure. And if a student with an undergraduate proposed that he had a revolutionary theory, you would rightly ignore them.

What Einstein did was he published mathematical models that explained things. That was 1905, the same year he got his PhD. So by "rejected" you mean "couldn't get a full teaching job with only an undergraduate degree", then sure.

Within a handful of years after his PhD, he had an academic job. He continued to develop his "wonderful year" papers. By 32, he was a full professor, and published the "gravity deflects light" paper that was the first large-scale proof that his theories where right. By 36, he had learnt Riemannian geometry, and used it to take special relativity and generalize it: producing General Relativity.

By that point, he was well enough respected that he had a special professorship that meant he didn't have to spend as much time teaching as most other professors.

So your rejection of Einstien? He couldn't get a university teaching position before he got his PhD.

Which makes more sense to you, the complex non-understood concept of entangled particles instantly communicating with each other from across the universe, or the simple intuitive concept of exactly cloned photons? If standard QM is correct, then physics truly is weird. If Einstein was correct, then it is comprehensible. Theoretical physics would progress much more quickly if Bohmian QM was the standard in my humble opinion. Standard QM leads to grad students publishing articles suggesting that the universe may become real because he viewed it from his telescope. Give me a break, I hope he was only trying to show how non-logical that concept is.

Bohmian is a non-local hidden variables interpretation. /shrug -- there are dozens of interpretations, and barring being able to hook things up with G-R (which nobody has pulled off perfectly), and some strange tricks in Everett (Quantum Suicide), I don't believe they predict different results for any observer.

We have not solved all mysteries of physics yet. If we have to scramble to prove safety with possibly only weeks for the rest of the world to review the results, in my mind this is reckless.

It was demonstrated to be safe. You can even read the paper. People in this thread who can read it have translated it to English as best they can. All that the LHC is doing is writing a fresh English translation.

Should they have to prove that in every possible model of the universe, this won't make the world die?

I'll give you the punchline: that is impossible. Because the IPU can be invoked at any time to create a model that behaves exactly like reality, except in one narrow case it eats the world.

They can do it for every credible model quite reasonably, which is, as far as I can tell, what they did.

One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision - BR

This was just a snippet from particular postings, but I'm missing where the "Einstien", "Hawkins", and "Feynmann" references are. I think these points should be removed.

9> 10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

This is arguable, but seeing as how we need MBH's to be both CAUSED and to be a PROBLEM, it might apply. However, to err on the side of caution (because we really don't know what the QM-Gravity relationship is), this should probably not count.

Some of the others are also arguable, but I'll allow them for the sake of argument. This brings it down to 80.

I'm not saying JTankers shouldn't fit in this category, but he's nowhere near as bad as you're making him out to be. He's more a doomsayer than someone along the lines of, say, Ludwig Plutonium the great (yeah, I know, I'm reverting to an older name, but in doing so, I'm trying to bring in the flavor of the environment of the crackpot tests).

Yakk wrote:So you understand tensor theory, advanced topology, analysis, quantum mechanics? Are you fluent in LQG, String Theory, or the Standard Model? Do you understand the implications of Noether's theorem, supersymmetry? You could take a possible symmetry and derive a conservation law using it?

Reminded me of (spoilered for kind of OT-ness)-

Spoiler:

Do you know anything about hackers? Can you jam with the console cowboys in cyberspace? Never experienced the new wave? Next wave? Dream wave? OR cyberpunk?

LHC with global warming. Obvious tosh. There won't be a globe when that mamma's turned on.

Anything I said pre-2014 that you want to quote me on, just run it past me to check I still agree with myself.

yy2bggggs wrote:We don't want to know if it's possible we will blow up the world--because, quite frankly, we already know the answer. And the answer is, quite frankly, despite all the testing we will ever do--yes. It's possible. That doesn't help us.

What we want to know is if we are going to destroy the world. And we can't know this with certainty, but in reality, we don't really care about certainty. We care about whether or not it's probable--that is, likely, that we will destroy the world. So again, possibility--irrelevant. Likelihood--key.

How good are CERN scientists at playing Texas Hold'em poker?My impression is that CERN is about to go "all in" on a pair of Kings.(Part of risk analysis is how big are the consequences if you lose. I think nature was dealt a pair of Aces, CERN might still win, but I think the odds are against them/us/all of us.)

JTankers wrote:How good are CERN scientists at playing Texas Hold'em poker.

What does that have to do with the price of cheese in Zimbabwe?

Poker is a bad analogy, 'cause everything has sane probabilities there... in most cases, there is a not-insignificant chance that you'll win, and a not-insignificant chance that you'll lose.

What's a better analogy, is betting that, in a certain hand of hold'em, you will get dealt exactly two cards at the start. Certainly it's possible that you won't be... the dealer could forget what game he's playing, the casino could be invaded by a horde of angry bears who attack the dealer before he can finish... but one would certainly expect that in an extremely large majority of cases, the correct number of cards will be dealt. Enough that, if you're not a scientist, and don't make a living off being accurate, you'd be willing to state that it's almost certain that you'd be dealt 2 cards at the start of a hold'em hand. You can't say it's absolutely certain (as, indeed, you can't say anything is absolutely certain), but it's close enough for any reasonable purpose.

yy2bggggs wrote:What we want to know is if we are going to destroy the world. And we can't know this with certainty, but in reality, we don't really care about certainty. We care about whether or not it's probable--that is, likely, that we will destroy the world. So again, possibility--irrelevant. Likelihood--key.

How good are CERN scientists at playing Texas Hold'em poker?My impression is that CERN is about to go "all in" on a pair of Kings.(Part of risk analysis is how big are the consequences if you lose. I think nature was dealt a pair of Aces, CERN might still win, but I think the odds are against them/us/all of us.)

You're misinterpreting what I typed. Reread it, very carefully. This has nothing to do with risk analysis (about which you're wrong anyway), and everything to do with possibility being irrelevant.

But that's fine. Let me give you a possible scenario. We run the LHC, and soon discover a GUT, as a direct result of experiments trying to create MBH's. As it turns out, however, not only are you wrong about MBH's, but we don't create any.

But my scenario isn't over. This GUT turns out to be pretty significant in revealing physics to us. It allows us to consider things we haven't considered before--things not even Otto or Baldev can imagine. In fact, it allows us to create devices that bend space-time at remote distances. Meanwhile, an asteroid is coming to hit the planet.

If we have this knowledge, we can divert the asteroid. If not, it plumets into earth, killing all of humanity.

It's possible. And per your Pascal's Wager based reasoning, it says we should start the LHC.

Do you know how much risk CERN is willing to take? If so how? Do I get to vote? You are not even being honest to the public about with the risks. You are making this decision for me and you are being reckless about it. If you are so sure this is safe, why are you scared to do a real, time independent, adversarial, transparent safety review? I am not unreasonable, I will accept a reasonable assurance of safety, prove my calculations wrong, and allow an independent proof of reasonable safety based on the potential risk.

Do you know how much risk CERN is willing to take? If so how? Do I get to vote? You are not even being honest to the public about with the risks. You are making this decision for me and you are being reckless about it. If you are so sure this is safe, why are you scared to do a real, time independent, adversarial, transparent safety review? I am not unreasonable, I will accept a reasonable assurance of safety, prove my calculations wrong, and allow an independent proof of reasonable safety based on the potential risk.

First of all, why should you have any say on what's done in France/Switzerland? This isn't an American endeavor.

And there was an endeavor much like you describe. It didn't take into account your calculations, because your calculations are bull. But it did based on actual science.

If you want to actually get upset on something that has an actual chance of killing you and many other people based on real science go look at say the places that store smallpox. There is a real, observable chance that it could get out and cause the worse epidemic in human history, due to the huge lack of immunity in the general population bellow a certain age.

Now, I do firmly believe that there are very good reasons to have these smallpox samples kept, but at least an intelligent argument can be made against it.

JTankers wrote:Do you know how much risk CERN is willing to take? If so how?

Irrelevant. How much of a risk CERN is willing to take has absolutely no bearing on how much of a danger we're in.

JTankers wrote:Do I get to vote?

Irrelevant. Presence or absence of political influence has absolutely no bearing on the amount of danger we're in.

Both of the above points, I might add, have absolutely nothing to do with what I've said so far, which is why I asked who you were talking to. You're so stuck on making your point that you're ignoring my argument, and not presenting any information that leads me to believe you're not falling for these errors.

Wake up. You're posting to this forum (and might I add, unethically)1. My arguments are about how you should do so, and the types of things you should worry about. If you're going to go on based solely on possible scenarios, might I ask if you added in the possibility I outlined in the last post, that not starting up LHC experiments could prove fatal for humanity? If you're ready to discuss likelihood instead of possibility, could you please give us some indication as to what the likelihoods actually are?

To clarify, here's the chain of the terms I'm using.

Possibility-something you dream up that is, in fact, possible. There are virtually an infinite number of these. A finite number of these are real.

Likelihood-something that, reasonably speaking, may actually be true. This is something supported by evidence, that isn't also easy to refute. It's also not something extrapolated, designed specifically to fit the evidence in such a way that it can't be refuted (e.g., stars naturally form and emit matter destroying strangelets, but only on or after april 15 2009; note there is a mathematical formulation for likelihood, that I'm not referring to, but for lack of better words, I'm just using this term--it should be clear from the context)

Probability-something that is based on a more certain metric--for example, a real theory or observation that we assume to be true, from which we can calculate either an empirical or theoretical mathematical probability

Probability > likelihood > possibility. Note that I even have a lower standard for possible worrying than "the probability is x", but you're not meeting that standard because of all of the special case pleading you require.

You are not even being honest to the public about with the risks.

Okay, let's talk honesty for a second then. Show me one deceptive thing I've said.

Let's look at your honesty while we're at it. You're editing your posts after the fact, changing what you said. This betrays a desire not to live with errors. It also suggests that you have no clue about this community, which respects people who make errors more than people who hide them.

Onto intellectual honesty--you're praising Einstein. Your particular scenario that you're worried about, in fact, has to do with black holes. As it turns out, there are no black holes--nada, none whatsoever... none, that is, unless you buy into GR theory.

But if you do, then there must be no preferred reference frame. Only, if there's no preferred reference frame, you don't get to speculate that the earth somehow is a magical preferred reference frame, and as such, you have to recognize that MBH's can be and are formed everywhere. But your theories don't work like this, so you make this proposal. This is highly speculative extrapolation, that stems from the flawed philosophy of science that I just pointed out (more accurately, from flawed human traits of psychology that most of us are trying to get over).2

But did you address this in your response to me? No, you shuffled things around, yet again avoiding the issues I'm bringing up. In particular, you are avoiding the fact that you should be sanity checking your own theories and not willy nilly extrapolating into possibilities.

Shall I go on? You present theories about things like why black holes are so big in the center of galaxies, which are naturally more dense. Your theories that they form show that you have common misconceptions about black holes, as if you believe that, say, if you make a black hole out of a star, you increase its gravity. Sorry, but that's absolutely false in GR. Big black holes are formed in the center of galaxies! And coincidentally, stars are denser near them as well. This is a big surprise why?3

You're reaching way into the realms of fantasy just to support your own views. This is the epitemy of intellectual dishonesty. You're pulling political tricks to bury your own errors. This is personal dishonesty. You're also arguing not with facts but with the same political tricks. This is also dishonest.

Now, I personally don't really care if you're dishonest. That has no bearing on your arguments. Even if you're a professional baby seal basher, if you have something to say, and that happens to be right, it should be worth paying attention to it.

So? Say it already!

Likewise, even if I'm being dishonest, it shouldn't matter with respect to the things that I'm saying. So if you're trying to address my actual arguments, it would behoove you not to pull ad hominem attacks.

You are making this decision for me and you are being reckless about it.

I'm making the decisions for you? You're making the decisions for me. You've appealed to authority so much in this thread it makes my head spin. You've shown us no model, no detailed calculations (I was able to dig a few up on your web site)--nothing to make us worry. You're pulling every crap political trick in the book to try to get us to worry about it but an argument. The fact that you're asking me about how CERN does things betrays even further your irrational obsessions about the issue, because I'm not talking about, relying on, or even referring to CERN's assessments.

If you are so sure this is safe, why are you scared to do a real, time independent, adversarial, transparent safety review?

If you're so sure I'm scared, why are you still beating your wife? Yet another political crap tactic. Don't try to substitute leading questions for a real argument. Might I remind you yet again that you're talking to intelligent people who don't fall for these tricks?

I am not unreasonable, I will accept a reasonable assurance of safety,

That's nice of you to assure me of this, but if I were a betting man, I would bet against it. You're already committed. You're demonstrating psychological symptoms of doomsaying. Your arguments reach into the wild and wacky to justify your claims because you need them to. You're running or associated with two web sites for this, so you're socially bound to it as well.

I personally don't think there's any argument that can possibly change your mind. But I also don't think this is too relevant. Should you happen upon a real argument against LHC safety, it would be legitimate just because the argument is.

So, can I hear the real arguments?

prove my calculations wrong,

Okay, if you have actual calculations, why aren't you posting them? Why you using all of this political BS to argue your points?

Stop rationalizing and start with the arguments, or just move on to another forum.

Put up or shut up.

1It's crystal clear that you're not interested in this community, but just stumbled upon the forum, quite possibly via a web search or something. Out of 13 posts at the moment you have made to the forum, all 13 were in this thread. Are you even familiar with what xkcd is?

The lack of ethics I'm referring to here is your leaching of these servers' storage spaces to present your own political agendas while showing no interest in the xkcd community nor the comics. In other words, xkcd is popular, and you're just leveraging this to spam.

2This is the special pleading [wiki] I'm talking about. Note that this is only a problem if you don't actually address the special considerations you're giving. But that's exactly the case we have here. I see no model that's not an insane extrapolation where you can have MBH's forming that are matter destroying, due to the LHC, but somehow not get them all of the time in supernovas, and you're not providing these models. This is more evidence in my mind of arguments stemming from cognitive dissonance than from rational possibilities.

You may have lived a nice full life of 43 years, and might be very smart. But you might be a total crack job too. All I know is that you're some random guy from the internet yelling that the sky is falling, and since every sanity check I throw at you is totally consistent with this, I'm being perfectly reasonable in this conclusion.

If you're onto something, you should be able to show us why. If you're concerned about it, you should be motivated to. Do you understand why it's so important to present the actual arguments here?

3A star is a very hot and destructive body, as is. If a planet is rotating around the star, and for some reason wanders into it, it will get destroyed. But planets exist! If a star is rotating around another star, and for some reason wanders into it, it will get consumed as well. Now what would happen if you swapped the star with a black hole of equal mass? In both cases, nothing qualitatively new, not until the planet actually wanders in, because black holes have the same mass as the matter that formed them. So the fact that there are binary stars and planets out there suggest there's nothing special about the gravity of a black hole that's different from the gravity of a massive object--and we shouldn't expect a black hole system to grow so huge simply because a black hole is in it "sucking" things in.

The "black holes suck" myth is not overtly obscure, and I would suspect someone who has a moderate idea of what's going on cosmically couldn't really make this mistake unless they were extremely biased. Given that the obvious explanation of big black holes in the center of galaxies is due to the density of the center of galaxies, appealing to the need for some new MBH theory seems unnecessary, and pronouncing such a need dishonest.

Izawwlgood wrote:Just to throw out there:People were paranoid when they detonated the first Atomic Bomb (CAPITILIZED!) because they thought it would ignite the atmosphere. It was foolish, but we can only say that now. With more complexity comes more complex problems. I'm not saying scrap LHC, thats stupid, and paranoid, but I do hope they have precautions in place to prevent... I dunno... runaway somethings or another.

Vaniver wrote:

paralian wrote:I agree. I would say that it was worse back then, because nobody knew if someone would be stupid enough to actually blow up the world.

I think he's referring to the speculation that detonating an atomic bomb could ignite the entire atmosphere, killing everything- which was obviously wrong because nitrogen burning is endothermic.

Actually, the atomic bomb analogy isn't a bad analogy.

It was proposed by somebody that, hey, it could destroy the world!So they thought, hmm, if that happened it would be very serious, so we better check this out.So they assembled an expert panel of expert physicists familiar with the experiment, and thoroughly studied the problem in detail using Science, bitches...

...and scientifically concluded that no, it wouldn't destroy the Earth.

...suffer from the computer disease that anybody who works with computers now knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is you play with them. They are so wonderful. - Richard Feynman

You do not want to get in the way of accelerated beams. At Fermilab there are a series of holes in the walls of the experimental hall where the beam hasn't been steered properly. At CERN, I once did one of those back-of-a-napkin calculations and the energy in the beam is comparable to an aircraft carrier at full steam.

So your hand would probably cease to exist in a very short time span if you put it in the beam.

miles01110 wrote:You do not want to get in the way of accelerated beams. At Fermilab there are a series of holes in the walls of the experimental hall where the beam hasn't been steered properly. At CERN, I once did one of those back-of-a-napkin calculations and the energy in the beam is comparable to an aircraft carrier at full steam.

So your hand would probably cease to exist in a very short time span if you put it in the beam.

*Reads about Anatoli Bugorski*holyfuckholyfuckholyfuckholyfuckholyfuckThat's seriously fucked up. I'm so pleased I never got plans for building a particle accelerator1 in my bedroom.1Any type, linear or the circular type.

Anything I said pre-2014 that you want to quote me on, just run it past me to check I still agree with myself.

(One of your fellow physicists appears to be suggesting perhaps a bit more caution before pushing the button...)

Open letter to Professor HawkingDear Professor HawkingThe safety of micro black hole(mBH) production in the CERN LHC accelerator, operating in COLLIDER MODE, has not been properly addressed.Six LAYERS OF PROTECTION for the Earth and all its inhabitants have been ASSUMED and discussed during the last decade or so:[I’ll briefly outline the first five, and then explain a FATAL MATH ERROR in the sixth]1. NO BLACK HOLES WILL BE PRODUCED.Ten years ago we were assured that mBHs could not be produced by any conceivable accelerator on Earth. The Plank Energy 10 ^ 19 GeV was supposedly required to produce a micro black hole. This would require an accelerator thousands of light years across.Today CERN and others are assuring us(if that’s the right word!) that the LHC will be a “BLACK HOLE FACTORY”, operating at only about 10 ^ 4GeV. Thus people believe a certain version of string theory with extra dimensions, and it is now thought that mBHs are 10 ^ 15 times easier to produce. And can be produced in an accelerator 10 ^ 15 times smaller in diameter than the hypothetical galactic version.A revision of 15 orders of magnitude should make people more modest about the certitude of their pronouncements. According to CERN:PROTECTION #1 NEVER EXISTED, but don‘t worry, they are absolutely certain of the next layers of protection, just like they used to be absolutely certain about #1.……………….(1)

2. BLACK HOLES WOULD EVAPORATE TOO QUICKLY TO INTERACT WITH THE EARTH.The 5 x 10 ^ 3GeV mBHs they are confident of producing would have a lifetime of around 4 x 10^ -86sec according to what was believed a decade ago and more ago. Since this is about 42 orders of magnitude smaller than the Plank time(5.4 X 10 ^ -44sec), not surprisingly, mBHs of that mass were deemed impossible.Now their lifetime is supposed to be in the order of 10 ^ -26sec, because of higher dimensions at small scales.So we’re supposed to REVISE THE LIFETIME OF AN mBH UPWARD by a whopping 60 ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE, and SUPPRESS HAWKING RADIATION (HR)by the same amount. To put things into perspective, the ratio between the Plank time 5.4 x 10 ^ -44sec and estimated age of the universe is about 10 ^ 62. We could hardly be more unsure of the actual mBH lifetime, in a quantitative sense, since the predicted values are so dependent on the “flavor of the month” version of string theory.Even if we are confident that a mBH must decay by Hawking Evaporation(HE):PROTECTION # 2 INVOLVES MAGNITUDES THAT ARE TOO WILDLY SPECULATIVE TO RELY ON. The fact that HAWKING RADIATION HAS NEVER BEEN OBSERVED in cosmic ray showers, suggests a process too slow to save us, even if it occurs.Purely from the HEALTH AND SAFETY point of view, we must assume thereforeTHAT PROTECTION # 2 DOES NOT EXIST…………………………..(2)

3. PERSISTENCE OF EARTH, MOON, AND OTHER BODIES IN SOLAR SYSTEM PROVES SAFETY OF mBH BOMBARDMENT.False analogy. Natural fission has been going on in the Solar System for Eons, without ever causing nuclear explosions(exponentially growing reactions). By changing the GEOMETRY of the experiment, TRINITY, the first atom bomb test, succeeded first try.ALL mBHs produced by bombardment by high energy cosmic rays are NECESSARILY RELATIVISTIC. The CENTRE OF MASS VELOCITY of the collision is relativistic, and this is CRUCIAL TO THE SAFETY OF THE EARTH, Moon, Sun etc,.These mBHs would cross the full diameter of the Earth in 0.042sec, Jupiter in 0.46sec, and the Sun in 4.6sec. Because of the small size and enormous speed, they would fly through like very heavy neutrinos, and have plenty of time to decay in the vastness of space. They would NEVER BE CAPTURED, AND SO WOULD POSE NO THREAT.Operating the LHC in COLLIDER MODE, ensures that the centre of mass velocity of the collisions are distributed about zero, and not just under the speed of light. It CHANGES THE GEOMETRY of the experiment. This guarantees that some of the mBHs produced by the LHC IN COLLISION MODE would be GRAVITATIONALLY CAPTURED IN THE BULK OF THE EARTH, something UNPRECEDENTED in its history.Any such mBH can never escape, and if it starts to absorb nucleons before it has time to evaporate, then it constitutes an EXISTENTIAL DANGER to the Earth. The only thing that matters then, is the TYPICAL DOUBLING TIME T2, analogous to T 1/2, the half-life for radioactive decay.Such mBHs would have all the time in the world to grow exponentially. And “all the time in the world” might be very short.PROTECTION # 3 DOES NOT EXIST IF LHC OPERATES IN COLLIDER MODE……….(3)

4.THE VASTLY HIGHER ENERGIES OF SOME COSMIC RAYS STRIKING EARTH ARE PROOF OF SAFETY.All the mBHs produced by such very high energy particles are relativistic, and are harmless, for the reasons described above. OPERATING THE LHC IN COLLIDER MODE REMOVES THIS PROTECTION IMMEDIATELY, so:PROTECTION # 4 IS TOTALLY BOGUS………………(4)5. THE COLLISIONS HAVE LESS ENERGY THAN A FEW FLYING MOSQUITOS, so must be safe.False analogy. The energy of the neutrons that triggered the exponential process in the TRINITY ATOM BOMB TEST 1945 in the New Mexico Desert was many orders of magnitude less than this, but STARTED AN EXPONENTIALLY INCREASING PROCESS. During the short time the U235 is explosively brought to a supercritical state, EVEN ONE SLOW NEUTRON causing fission is sufficient. Doesn’t take much energy to LIGHT A FUSE.[Of course a relativistic neutron produced by cosmic rays, that zipped thru the core of an A-bomb with no chance to cause fission, would be pretty harmless……]PROTECTION # 5 IS UTTER BILGE.PROTECTION #2-5 are constantly quoted by CERN, whose attitude to RISK ASSESSMENT is really about PUBLIC RELATIONS and not the PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE…………..(5)

CERN is so blase about the weakness of the arguments for the PROTECTION #2-5, because even if they are rubbish, they think the next protection is surely a clincher:CERN quote a mBH with a mass equivalent to 5000 nucleons, which might be typically produced, which absorbs one nucleon per hundred hours.6.EVEN IF THE PREVIOUS PROTECTIONS FAIL, THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO DANGER BECAUSE:[At that rate, even if one did not take into account the fact that each black hole would slow down every time it gobbled up a proton, and thus suck down matter at an even slower rate, “about 100 protons would be destroyed every year by such a black hole, so it would take much more than the age of universe to destroy even one milligram of Earth material]………(6)Let’s see now, one mg contains aboutM/u nucleons, where M=10 ^ -6 kg and u = 1.67 x 10 ^ -27kgSo number of nucleons to be destroyed isN = 6 x 10 ^ 20 (ie Avogadro’s Number divided by a thousand, as we would expect)So divide this by 100 to get a time to destroy that many nucleons ofT = 6 x 10 ^ 18 years, much more than the age of the universe.Note the AMAZING ASSUMPTION OF LINEARITY. This must be the BIGGEST SCIENTIFIC BLUNDER IN HISTORY, and the most EXPENSIVE, if it literally costs the Earth.A classical mBH accretes exponentially even as it slows down…….(7)Speculative extra dimensions reduce the rate until the effect of the extra dimensions is no longer noticeable. On coming to a halt at the centre of the earth, material is forced towards the entire AREA(think N-squared) until conservation of momentum forces accretion to occur along the equator. So we could get a brief period of asymptotic growth, followed by exponential. In the exponential process N = No e ^ kt, the e time is less than 60 years! We cannot observe the minutae of the actual processes within the Earth. And extra mBHs are being added, presumably with variable starting masses and accretion rates, which depend on the size. The overall result is similar to that for analogues in the Economy. The growth of an investment portfolio for example, but one in which the individual investments cannot ever lose, cannot stay still, and after the initial settling period, cannot increase as slowly as a linear rate. ALL BOOM, and NO BUST. Such investments grow exponentially, until something runs out…..in this case, the EARTH ITSELF.It is easier for mere mathematical mortals like me to understand it in terms of something like the growth of an investment. The period is 100 hours, and the rate is .02% COMPOUND INTEREST. That approach is familiar to non-scientists in business etc, and this is an open letter. The best way to do the math then is in terms of the DOUBLING TIME T2, the time to double the investment. Even wild fluctuations in the rate, can be accommodated by corresponding reductions in T2. It still only takes a certain number of doublings to consume the Earth.N = No(2 ^ n) where n is the number of doublings each taking T2.No = 5000, then with dN/dt starting at 1 per hundred hours(2.8 x 10 ^ -6 nucleons per sec), the mBH doubles in 40 years, and gobbles the earth in just under 160 such doublings, or about 6400 years.

A classical mBH of mass about 5GeV has a radius of approx 10 ^ -50m, so much under the PLANK SIZE, as to be pretty meaningless. No wonder it used to be thought that such mBHs were impossible.The SAME mBH is now supposed to be around 10 ^ -19m. ANOTHER WHOPPING REVISION, 31 MAGNITUDES!So the CROSS SECTION, and ability to interact with matter is INCREASED by about 62 MAGNITUDES. And no-one at CERN is modest enough to say WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL WE ARE DOING!In view of the wild variations in the order of magnitude of the cross-section, depending on the particular model, we should note that if the mBH starts accreting at one nucleon per hour, the Earth has only 64 years, and if we start with 100 nucleons per hour, the Earth has less than 8 months, the last of which would be horrific in the extreme. Only if the doubling time is long in Geological terms, EONS, is the COST to the Earth negligible……..(8)

Yet CERN have an AMAZING FAITH that:A black hole absorbs only one nucleon per hundred hours or roughly 10 ^ 2 per year indefinitely………IRRESPECTIVE OF HOW BIG IT GROWSWhen it is a million times, or a billion times, or a trillion times more massive, the mBH still gobbles only one nucleon per hundred hours……even when it grows from N = 5000 to N = 6 x 10 ^20, and presumably even when it grows to 3.6 x 10 ^ 51(the number of nucleons in the Earth). In a linear model, this sure would take a long time. Let’s restate it:CERN BELIEVE THAT ACCRETION OCCURS AT A CONSTANT RATE, INDEPENDENT OF SIZE AND MASS.WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY CLAIM.dN/dt = a constant for a black hole in the Earth.This constant is INDEPENDENT OF THE MASS AND SIZE, an astonishing state of affairs. At just what scale does this break down?A 10 ^ 9 solar mass black hole in the nucleus of a Quasar perhaps? The density of space in the central region of a Galaxy near a SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE is nowhere near that in the interior of the Earth. And as we have seen, the people at CERN think that SIZE DOESN’T MATTER! I believe that Astronomers, if they actually thought about it, would LAUGH THEM TO SCORN.But this is TRAGIC COMEDY:(7)To apply a CERN type RISK ASSESSMENT to the TITANIC would find that it could not possibly sink, since the rate of taking on water would be independent of the size of the hole, so tearing a 100 meter long gash would do no more harm than drilling a millimeter diameter hole. How could it possibly sink? FORGET THE LIFEBOATS!After all, starting with a microscopic hole, it should be possible to cut it to any arbitrary larger size without increasing the rate at which water is entering! I suppose we could cut away the entire ship, which is what they may succeed in doing with our Spaceship Earth. We might be tempted to laugh at the idiocy of all this, but that would be like whistling in the cattle cars trundling down the track towards Auschwitz.And it would be unfair to compare the new LHC GAMBLE to the launch of the TITANIC, because:The designers and operators of TITANIC were OPTIMISTS, but NOT CRIMINALS.CERN

They1. Did not seek out dangerous objects like icebergs.2. Had credible detection methods for potentially dangerous objects. Foghorns and echoes. Men with binoculars on watch.3. Had credible methods of detecting damage, and if not too severe, of effecting temporary repair. Sound of collision, crew reports of shipping water, plates and braced beams etc.4. Had watertight compartments to contain flooding, if not too severe.5. Had some lifeboats, so that at least some people would survive.6. Had radio communication, to call in outside help.7. Had the whole world outside the ship to be rescued to.8.There was no conceivable way for the rest of humanity to go down with the ship.

3. No detection of damage, until it is terminal for the Earth. No repair.

4. No containment of mBH that doesn’t evaporate harmlessly.5. No escape.

6. No rescue from E.T!

7. Nowhere to go.

8. We’re ALL IN THE SAME BOAT.

CERN HAVE NO PLAN B,and would not even know there was a problem until it was too late.I suggest that the fairest comparison would be to a monstrous slow motion version of the original TRINITY ATOM BOMB TEST, with all of us NOT JUST OBSERVERS, BUT PARTICIPANTS.Note that a CERN style risk assessment would conclude that the original atom bomb could not possibly explode, because1. Natural fission has been going on in the earth for billions of years, and the Earth is still here.2. We never detect even small natural nuclear explosions in seismic records.3. Neutrons produced by cosmic rays on the surface of the moon must cause fission events, but we never witness explosions.4 .The amount of fissile material available for natural fission events in the Earth, Moon, and Solar System is vastly bigger than anything we could pack into a bomb.5. A single fission produces less energy than a mosquito’s heartbeat.6. A neutron capable of causing fission has less energy than a mosquito’s thought about its cardiovascular health.7.Before the concentration of fissile material can become supercritical, the heat produced will A. Make it expand orB. melt orC. vaporize and so become sub critical.8. And this is the clincher, natural fission occurs, and the process takes billions of years before a fraction of the fuel is used. Otherwise there‘d be no fissionable elements left!9. The 35kg of U235 contains about 10 ^ 26 nuclei. If the time for one fission to trigger another, T2 is say 10 ^ - 8 seconds, then it would take 10 ^ 18 seconds for the bomb to run itscourse, or longer than the age of the universe. It would hardly get warm…….because of course, according to CERN the process would be linear. Of course if it was……golly gosh, exponential, it would take about 87 doublings, or in this case under a microsecond!Please check my claims, and get colleagues and grad students to do the same. A lay person like me has zero credibility in the CLOSED CERN MINDSET.If you are alarmed by CERN’s DISREGARD for the PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE, and failure to understand that a possibly small, BUT WILDLY UNKNOWN PROBABILITY multiplied by the ULTIMATE LOSS(it is infinite to us!) is unacceptable:I beseech you to write an OPEN LETTER to the Director of CERN, copying to President Sarkozy and other heads of state, colleagues etc……….(9)COLLIDER MODE SHOULD BE DISABLED until INCONTROVERTIBLE EVIDENCE of HAWKING RADIATION is found in beams striking STATIONARY TARGETS, just like cosmic ray impacts(and so just as safe), and in the COSMIC RAY DATA itself.

In the last century, Einstein’s General Relativity theory predicted twice the bending of light passing the Sun that Newton’s theory predicted. That factor of two made it possible for Eddington and to verify Einstein’s prediction in 1919 during a Solar Eclipse.Today we have competing ideas, whose particular expressions predict wildly different orders of magnitude…….and NO EXPERIMENTAL DATA to help us DECIDE WHICH IS EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE TO THE TRUTH.

CERN might try to jump the gun, and launch before the expected date. If HAWKING RADIATION IS OBSERVED, beyond any doubt, then we are safe until they dream up the next way to endanger the Earth. Banishment of the whole show to a distant asteroid should be contemplated, if we are to avoid becoming an exemplar for the FERMI PARADOX…….(10)But if none is observed, then don’t expect an admission “we were wrong, and didn’t know what the hell we were doing”. Instead expect “we told you it was safe”. That could be disastrous, because, mBHs could already be accreting in the Earth, and even if not, more powerful experiments such as COLLIDING LEAD NUCLEI at 10 ^ 6GeV, would be started to discover the elusive God Particle, the Higgs(eluded us since the 60s), and create those oh-so harmless micro black holes…………..

Again the FAITH that HR will occur, and will be rapid enough to save us. More worried about careers and Noble Prizes!http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/ ... 174524.htm(6)Really awful FAITH in linear growth:http://www.livescience.com/environment/ ... holes.htmlDo people who associate themselves with CERN get loans from Swiss banks that charge 5 cents a year interest on 1 Euro, and still only charge 5 cents a year interest on 1billion Euros, or a trillion, or 10^20, or the number of nucleons in the Earth, 3.6 x 10 ^ 51?(7)If we look at the claim that initially the rate of absorption slows as the mBH slows and grows, and consider the Classical case:The mBH is effectively flying through free space, since most of an atom is empty space.An mBH with an initial mass Mo, initial velocity Vo that absorbs a nucleus mass m:By conservation of momentum if M = Mo + mM x V = Mo x VoSoV = Mo x Vo / MExpressing everything in atomic terms of nucleonsV = No x Vo / N

V is inversely proportional to N.Number of nucleons absorbed per unit time is proportional to Volume swept out by mBH:dN/dt = Const x pi x R ^ 2 x VWhere R = 2GM/c ^ 2, the Schwarzschild radius.Gathering constants and noting that R proportional to N, and V inversely proportional to NdN/dt = k x N ^ 2 / NGives usdN/dt =kNIntegration gives usN = No e ^ kt(8)In the last 20 doublings, the mBH goes from being one millionth the Earth’s mass to gobbling it up. 2 ^ 20 = approx 10 ^ 6.In the last 10 x T2, the mBH gobbles the last 999/1000 of the Earth.Survival time is insensitive to initial number of mBHs absorbed in a short time, if belated prudence sets in and the machine is switched off. Thus a thousand mBHs shorten the life by about 10 x T2, say from 64 years to 60. since 2 ^ 10 = 1024, or approx a thousand. So PERVERSELY, even a single mBH is almost as dangerous as a whole lot of them. It just gains us a little extra time towards the end.Survival time is of course proportional to the typical or average doubling time T2.(9)A closed letter would be thrown into the bin, or would disappear into a bureaucratic black hole!Or some secretary who doesn’t know a hadron from a haddock would keep it on file until after the LHC is fully operational, so as not to upset the boss……(10)Perhaps all civilizations in the Galaxy are like us, and find it easier to switch on a LHC in collider mode, before they have self-sufficient space colonies which would allow them to avoid total extinction. Hence the answer to the question, “where the hell are they”?

Ie: the black hole soaks up fewer particles per second as it gains mass, at least until it starts using attraction to soak up particles.

As gravity is extremely extremely weak, that won't start being a factor for a long while.

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And then on top of this, you have the neutron star problem. Neutron stars are dense, and would be able to trap some of the black holes that form from cosmic rays.

As neutron stars aren't black holes, they must either evaporate or not form...

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On top of that, you just quoted a CRACKPOT RED FLAG post that is an ANONYMOUS comment ON A NON-PHYSICS website, and claimed that IT IS A PHYSICIST.

AND in about 30 minutes of EFFORT, I just went and found a massive gaping HOLE in the only bit of his mathematics that I BOTHERED TO TRY TO TEAR APART.

The rest of the numbers seem to be hand-wavey as well. "Oh look, error margins ! It must be even less reliable than that!" without actually saying what magnitues are consistent with current observations.

Anything going on in any number of biology labs could kill all of humanity. In fact, that is far more likely, because terrorists are actively trying to do such things. They are not trying to power up CERN and blow up the world.

(One of your fellow physicists appears to be suggesting perhaps a bit more caution before pushing the button...)

So, instead of providing an argument with your calculations, which you said you had, you provide a badly pasted1 version of an article posted at 9:48pm, 14 April, 2008 (your post being at 0:58 15 April, 2008).

Why are you avoiding your own calculations? Do you have them? Why are you scrambling for other people's arguments and soliciting their help?

By the way, since you posted this, it's only fair that you should be able to defend it as if it's yours.

Open letter to Professor Hawking

An open disclaimer to cass j:I am not Professor Hawking. I'm not even a physicist. I did have AP physics in high school, and I did well enough in it that I got college credit for it. I'm not quite sure how high my IQ is, but it's probably not too impressive. Seriously, cass j, I'm just some random idiot, and I'm sure JTankers has this covered. I'm not even really so much arguing, as I am just practicing my English by putting random words together with a few links.

Ten years ago ... Today ...

I don't know what the hell this 10 years ago thing was supposed to be about, but it's part of the standard model, even today as far as I understand, that the mass of a mBH is 1019GeV/c2. I recall your extreme skepticism about Hawking and all of his physics earlier on this thread, and you even said this:

JTankers wrote:Hawking called Einstein doubly wrong, yet it is Einstein who is repeatedly found to have been correct in his theories.

But this part of cass's posts is phrased a bit oddly for me to think that you offer (logically consistent and unbiased) support for it.

There is a speculative theory, but at least it's a theory, called string theory, that involves extra dimensions. Under certain string theory interpretations, due to the extra dimensions, gravity could be immensely stronger at smaller scales, and if so, this can dramatically decrease the energy needed to produce black holes, by the several orders of magnitude reported by cass j. But if you're going to cling to Einstein and deny Hawking, why here would you favor Hawking (the "ten years ago") so much more over even more speculative (the "today", which is really the string theory version) theories?

I love a good horror story, so I'll keep going with this:

CERN and others are assuring us(if that’s the right word!) that the LHC will be a “BLACK HOLE FACTORY”, operating at only about 10 ^ 4GeV. ... A revision of 15 orders of magnitude should make people more modest about the certitude of their pronouncements.

cass is severely off. He's assuming that just because the LHC may produce MBH's at 104GeV, that it actually requires that much energy. That assumption isn't true. It turns out the lower limit isn't so well established--MBH's could be formed at even lower energies. 15 orders of magnitude isn't enough of a difference.

To scare you even more, I'll say straight out, that MBH's may already be captured within the earth's gravitational field, produced by existing colliders. If that doesn't make your spine tingle, let me go further. These MBH's may not only already be in the earth's gravitational field, they could already be inside your own body! Talk about scary.

Spoiler:

Black hole electrons, bitches! Sorry--the fact that other colliders produced this was a red herring necessary to make this into a horror story. Let this be a lesson learned though--we're not looking at the dangers that MBH's can be produced, we're looking at the dangers that dangerous, e.g. matter destroying, MBH's can be produced.

PROTECTION #1 NEVER EXISTED, but don‘t worry, they are absolutely certain of the next layers of protection, just like they used to be absolutely certain about #1.……………….(1)

Spoiler:

So what's going on here is that there are two theories--standard, and string. But the string theory black holes most likely behave like ordinary particles. This doesn't mean string theory is true, but what you really want, if you want to create a doomsday device, isn't a MBH (if I were an MBH salesman and you were a not so careful mad scientist, I could sell you a MBH that would be worthless). It's a matter destroying MBH that you need.

The real story here is cass's "10 years ago" and "today" is an utterly false misnomer. When he says "10 years ago", he should really be referring to the standard model, and when he says "today", he should be referring to string theory.

The fact that HAWKING RADIATION HAS NEVER BEEN OBSERVED in cosmic ray showers,

There's a difference in knowing what you're looking at and detecting the thing in the first place, but this particular piece is odd, because in order for this fact to:

suggests a process too slow to save us, even if it occurs.

...then we need MBH's in cosmic showers.

3. PERSISTENCE OF EARTH, MOON, AND OTHER BODIES IN SOLAR SYSTEM PROVES SAFETY OF mBH BOMBARDMENT.False analogy. Natural fission has been going on in the Solar System for Eons, without ever causing nuclear explosions(exponentially growing reactions). By changing the GEOMETRY of the experiment, TRINITY, the first atom bomb test, succeeded first try.

Nice try. MBH's are particles, not mechanisms. Atomic bombs require arrangements of fissionable material to sustain a chain reaction. MBH's, per this assessment--well, just have to be present (and only one of them), and slow, to destroy us all in 60 years.

So, yeah, I guess he's right. It is a false analogy.

ALL mBHs produced by bombardment by high energy cosmic rays are NECESSARILY RELATIVISTIC.

Again, nice try. Many of the high energy cosmic rays of this magnitude are thought to be produced by supernova. Supernova produce massive explosions that smash all sorts of particles into each other (sound familiar?), and some of the results of supernova are heavy elements--ordinary heavy elements. You know, that stuff you find on earth that weighs more than iron--for example, copper, or that Uranium you were just talking about.

The extreme forces involved in supernova peter out at some point as a function of a square of a distance, so if you want specific energies in a supernova explosion, it's not too hard--just walk out a little bit until you get them. But these are the forces that accelerate tiny particles to really high speeds. The particles involved in cosmic rays of higher energies are thought to consist mostly of hydrogen, but still contain quite a large sample of these heavier elements, which, I remind you, are perfectly caught, and still, and exist with fair densities on the planet earth.

Do you see where I'm going with this? MBH's produced by these explosions--the same ones you see in cosmic rays--should already be on earth, if they are stable configurations. They are most certainly not going to "necessarily" travel at relativistic speeds. The same gravitational processes that allow this stuff to fall back in and coalesce into planets containing Hydrogen and Uranium should contain such matter destroying black holes, should it not?

4.THE VASTLY HIGHER ENERGIES OF SOME COSMIC RAYS STRIKING EARTH ARE PROOF OF SAFETY.All the mBHs produced by such very high energy particles are relativistic, and are harmless, for the reasons described above. OPERATING THE LHC IN COLLIDER MODE REMOVES THIS PROTECTION IMMEDIATELY, so:PROTECTION # 4 IS TOTALLY BOGUS(4)

Okay, who else spotted the irony here? CERN doesn't know what they are doing. They have these speculations, and they keep changing by 15 orders, 60 orders, etc of magnitude. So their analytical approaches are in such disagreement as to be useless--what do we do, then, apply more tests?

Yet now, we're taking claims that the energies involved in such particles are safe, based on the fact that they hit us all of the time, and crying FOUL!!! Why? Because, the author, analytically, is determining for you that such data proves nothing, because such particles are harmless due to their being relativistic.

I know what you're trying to say here, but this is frankly absurd. There is indeed a legitimate safety concern about high energy particles and what they can do, that's a side issue from whether or not they can create your particular booger monsters. And I would say that addressing such concerns in a safety report, by saying that collisions at this energy occur all of the time, is a good thing. This can't possibly be a valid criticism.

IOW, in case you don't understand, it's legitimate to ask for more, but it betrays blind paranoia to claim it irrelevant.

5. THE COLLISIONS HAVE LESS ENERGY THAN A FEW FLYING MOSQUITOS, so must be safe.

Having been to Brazil and having gotten sick there, I'll certainly concede that things with less energy than a few flying mosquitoes (e.g., a single flying mosquito) CAN most certainly harm you (though frankly, I'm not really sure it was the mosquitoes that got me sick).

6.EVEN IF THE PREVIOUS PROTECTIONS FAIL, THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO DANGER BECAUSE:

See supernova argument.

It is easier for mere mathematical mortals like me to understand it in terms of something like the growth of an investment.

You forgot to add in all of the extra dimensions, quantum effects (you know, a classical electron should burst itself asunder, and the classical electron should also slam into the classical nucleus, which itself should want to fly apart, etc). Methinks you do not know the rules of the land you've walked into. Keep in mind the entire reason for the dramatically lower energies required for MBH's predicates on the fact that gravity itself is a lot stronger on smaller scales (thus, you don't need nearly as much mass to produce a black hole). Another way to say this is that gravity is a lot weaker on larger scales.

It's fine to entertain possibilities like this as a back-of-the-envelope kind of thing, if you're unsure, but you should certainly apply some sort of sanity check. We're dealing with QM and gravity, and unknown physics--so clinging to classical physics is only nonsense.

The rest of this is just drivel.

1Badly pasted in the sense that half of the links don't work, since they include the literal dots in between injected by the other forum for link foreshortening.

I'm sorry for diverting us away from convincing JTankers that he's not making sense, but I really quick wanted to ask something:

I've been worrying about the LHC since around November, and my friends are sick of it. I don't know a lot about physics or anything, just that if something goes wrong, this thing might kill us all. Can someone tell me if we're in danger or not?

Yue wrote:I'm sorry for diverting us away from convincing JTankers that he's not making sense, but I really quick wanted to ask something:

I've been worrying about the LHC since around November, and my friends are sick of it. I don't know a lot about physics or anything, just that if something goes wrong, this thing might kill us all. Can someone tell me if we're in danger or not?

That is a good question, below are some of the more well known and prestigious scientists and physicists that are asking the same question and coming to some not very comfortable conclusions...

Alpha, LHCConcerns.com wrote:To jtankers:- Dr. Otto E. Rössler: This is a special case, because he appears to be a a more prestigious scientist. But he is not a specialist in particle physics: He is primary a Biochemist that has many publications in the field of inmunity, and later in human behaviour. The nearest he is from physics are his works on chaos in the kinetics of enzimatic reactions (a work between the biochemistry and the maths) (one example: http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet ... s&gifs=yes ) In general he works now in metemathical biology. He works also in algorithms for Global Positioning Systems ( http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/Chemie/Chem ... ssler.html ). He is eminent, but one more time, HE IS NOT A PHYSICIST. It's good to hear the voices of other sciences about any scientific problem, but only as informative, presumptive OPINIONS. As an example, my boss works in cancer and developmental biology, but he loves to speak about ageing, altought he doesn't work on it! I love my boss, but his opinions about ageing are only that: opinions. Where are the concerns of REAL PARTICLE PHYSCISTS? Nowhere! There's still NO SCIENTIFIC PAPERS talking about a real risk

Otto E. Rössler (b. in Berlin, Germany, May 20, 1940) became an amateur radio operator (DL 9KF) at the age of 17. He finished his medical studies with an immunological dissertation in Tubingen in 1966. Dr. Rössler then began as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology in Bavaria. In 1969, he won a visiting appointment at the Center for Theoretical Biology at SUNY-Buffalo. In 1970-73, he got a habilitation from the DFG. In 1976, he became a tenured University Docent. In 1979, he became Professor for Theoretical Biochemistry at the University of Tübingen. In 1994, he became Professor of Chemistry by decree.

In 1975, Art Winfree initiated him into chaos. One year later he published his paper on the "simplest" chaotic attractor (as Ed Lorenz later put it). Three years after, hyperchaos followed, which was equally simple. He is a member of the Santa Fe Institute and a fellow of the International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics. In 2003, he received the Chaos Award of the University of Liège and in 2003 the René Descartes Award. In 1999 he obtained a honorary doctorate from the International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics.

Professor Dr. Otto E. Roessler warns that the scientific community claims the success of the experiment may result in the black hole destroying the planet within 50 million years [reducing the remaining life expectancy of Earth by 99%]. His own calculations indicate that this time frame may in fact be closer to 50 months [Professor Dr. Otto E. Rössler].

Alpha, LHCConcerns.com wrote:- About Dr.(really?) Raj Baldev: This is a funny one. He has NO PAPERS, no references, no publications (I insist: look at Google Schoolar)... He seems like Luis Sancho: a pseudo-scientist looking for his 5-minutes of glory

That is strange, I had no difficulty finding voluminous works by by Dr. Raj Baldev, including the book "Two Big Bangs Created the Universe".

Dr. Raj Baldev, http://www.igcar.ernet.in/director/Publications: "Dr. Baldev Raj has more than 650 publications in leading national and international journals, referred books, manuscripts of status articles; delivered more than 200 honour, plenary, key note and invited lectures. He has 5 Indian Standards to his credit and 18 patents in the area of NDT. He has contributed 9 articles in Encyclopedia of Materials Science and Technology, many international reviews and articles in encyclopedia. "Awards: "National Metallurgist Award (Research-Academy) from Union Ministry of Steel and Indian Institute of Metals (2007), Padma Shri, Govt. of India (2007), Indian Science Monitor Award, Indian Science Monitor Foundation (2007), National NDE Award for International Recognition, ISNDT (2006), 1st Prof. A.K. Rao Memorial Lecture, ISAMPE (2006), NOCL Award from Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (2005) and..."

Alpha, LHCConcerns.com wrote:To jtankers:- About WL Wagner: No, he is not a FORMER physicist. He has graduated principally in Biology in Berckley. He current works principally in botany and molecular phylogeny (this means: building the tree of life with molecular biology tools) in hawaiian flora. He also have a FEW works in human health, and the nearest he is from physics are two works on physic of the fluids ( http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/t ... 3/art00019 ) and this is NOT particle physics. If you don't belive me, enter in Google Schoolar and tip "WL Wagner". Very interestig works in botany, but it seems clear that he hasn't anything relevant to say about colliders

You conveniently failed to note that Walter L Wagner has a minor in physics along with his major in Biology and did graduate particle physics research work at UC Berkeley where he was initially given credit for discovering what was at the time believed to be a magnetic mono pole particle. Your facts are not objective and accurate. Please see wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_rays#Unusual_Cosmic_Rays, and note who was initially given credit for discovering what was believed at the time to be the novel particle "magnetic monopole" [it was Walter L. Wagner]. See also Time magazine, August 25, 1975, "Bring it Back Alive" http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,913445,00.html.

[Walter L. Wagner has filed legal action petitioning for reasonable proof of safety and at least four months for independent verification of the same [former cosmic ray researcher and nuclear safety officer]]

Why are you replying here, to a post from a completely different forum? A forum that you have already posted that response on directly? Why crosspost it here, if not just to troll? And why, when you're posting in this thread, don't you respond to any of the challenges put to you in this thread?

[edit] Paragraph of vitriol removed... I'm sorry, that was unnecessary.

JTankers wrote:False analogy. Natural fission has been going on in the Solar System for Eons, without ever causing nuclear explosions(exponentially growing reactions). By changing the GEOMETRY of the experiment, TRINITY, the first atom bomb test, succeeded first try.

Actually, fission doesn't happen naturally (that we know of) anywhere in the solar system. Fusion, however, is a different story.

JTankers wrote:False analogy. Natural fission has been going on in the Solar System for Eons, without ever causing nuclear explosions(exponentially growing reactions). By changing the GEOMETRY of the experiment, TRINITY, the first atom bomb test, succeeded first try.

Actually, fission doesn't happen naturally (that we know of) anywhere in the solar system. Fusion, however, is a different story.

Uranium has undergone spontaneous fission as long as it's been around. Even with the low naturally occurring concentrations of uranium, at least a handful of those neutrons should have induced fission in other uranium atoms as well... admittedly, I'm just nitpicking for the hell of it.

miles01110 wrote:Actually, fission doesn't happen naturally (that we know of) anywhere in the solar system. Fusion, however, is a different story.

Interestingly enough, it has, and on this planet. No explosions, but a self-sustaining chain reactions did occur off and on for many thousands of years. The mean output was something like 150 kW, but since it switched on and off repeatedly, the peak would have been considerably higher.

I'm beginning to doubt there's any legitimate reason for his posting here, personally...

Seriously, JT, cut out the trolling.

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

The scientists and physicists with world recognized credibility who have gone public proclaiming non-trivial probabilities of non-trivial risk to the planet from operation of the Large Hadron Collider are the views you will need to refute for this project to go forward without an independent, adversarial, time independent, full safety study. Why you would want to skip such a safety step that might result in proof of safety or not when the fate of humanity is at stake is beyond my comprehension, but that is what you will need to do I think.

JTankers wrote:The scientists and physicists with world recognized credibility who have gone public proclaiming non-trivial probabilities of non-trivial risk to the planet from operation of the Large Hadron Collider are the views you will need to refute for this project to go forward without an independent, adversarial, time independent, full safety study. Why you would want to skip such a safety step that might result in proof of safety or not when the fate of humanity is at stake is beyond my comprehension, but that is what you will need to do I think.

I claim that you are incapable of determining the credibility of a scientist in this matter.

As evidence, at least one of the scientists you have cited is a serious crackpot. When you quoted math, the parts of it I bothered to examine turned out to be serious gibberish.

In essence: it appears as if your motivations are not based on any scientific evidence, but rather standard doomsday psychology. This means I shouldn't take any of your statements of fact at face value, but rather presume that they are inaccurate and wrong unless demonstrated otherwise.

Your choice to produce a list of scientists backing your side that contains at least one serious crackpot, and another person who is a mathematical biologist, also undermines your case. I haven't looked into the third scientist you cited (the one you claim is a physicist) because if I spend all of my time attempting to refute the arguments of people who spam out garbage arguments, I get bored.

Could you please provide a strong argument for your case, instead of spamming out tonnes of crappy ones? And a strong advocate for it, instead of spamming out multiple ones that include serious crackpots?

PS: Remember that "it is more dangerous to eat a candy than this"? It is more dangerous to think about eating a candy than this. There are zero credible models that result in the LHC having any significant impact of destroying the Earth, nevermind in your lifetime, that I have seen.

One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision - BR

Yakk wrote:Could you please provide a strong argument for your case that we will not find anywhere else on the internet, instead of spamming out tonnes of crappy ones?

Ie. a unique article, written by you, Jtankers, for us, xkcd. None of this 'Whoever, LHCConcerns.com wrote:' BS.Marks will be out of 30. Please write your name at the top of each page of the answer booklet.You may start writing... now!

Anything I said pre-2014 that you want to quote me on, just run it past me to check I still agree with myself.